Tag Archives: Fullerton police not guilty

I sometimes fear I’ve lost my capacity to be shocked by our justice system. Still, I was unprepared for two Fullerton Police officers to be found “not guilty” on all charges. It seems truly incomprehensible to me that no one was prepared to admit—even in the passive voice—that, “Mistakes were made.” All was done, according to the defense, “under policy and according to their training.”

Okay, maybe, but if so, then something is desperately wrong with both the policy and the training. It should not take a whole pod of cops to subdue one man—even one with super human strength—no less one who was subdued into a coma and brain death. Something other than deadly force should have been possible and certainly would have been more appropriate.

I understand that it’s both tough and dangerous to be a police officer. I have written and narrated police training films on the Post Shooting Trauma that police often suffer after a fatal encounter. I’m not unsympathetic to the difficulties they face. Also, having done my clinical internship at Napa State (Mental) Hospital, I carry few illusions or romantic notions concerning insanity. It’s a medical condition, and it’s damned hard to treat. However, the mentally ill homeless on our streets did not choose this life—their body and brain chemistry made that choice for them.

Yes, street people can be unpredictable and violent. And they often don’t follow the orders of authority figures—neither parents nor police. Threatening words and actions are more likely to escalate a situation than calm it. Police and mentally ill homeless people tend to share not liking certain boundaries transgressed. Cops don’t like their “command authority” threatened, and mentally ill homeless tend not to like their autonomy threatened. These two traits met tragically on the streets of Fullerton and ended the life of Kelly Thomas—and likely the careers of at least two police officers.

However, since, in theory, it should be easier to train a police officer than a mentally ill schizophrenic, maybe we should look at training protocols. I know it’s a lot to expect our police to be social workers in addition to being law enforcement officers, but the best interventions are the ones that end peacefully. Street justice is not justice—not for Kelly Thomas, nor for the police.

The two officers were prosecuted—and not by a rookie DA who got sandbagged but by the Orange County District Attorney. They were found not guilty. This is a verdict we have to live with—and we will, as will the police.

I think it’s important that in this tragedy, we take the opportunity to learn some things. Behind the dirt and the rags are human beings. Behind the badges and uniforms are also human beings. It’s all too easy to objectify some enemy, some kind of sub-human and see just stereotypes to be hated and feared. This, however, only leads to more tragedies. We have an opportunity, born of this tragedy, to improve our community, to open a dialogue about the treatment of street people and to reach out to law enforcement and encourage changes in training and protocols for dealing humanely with all of our homeless population.

We all could use some training in seeing our mutual humanity, in understanding that no parent dreamed of his or her child becoming homeless and mentally ill. No street person aspired to hear voices. Nor did police officers go into law enforcement to be scorned and feared by average citizens. Most entered with idealistic visions of fighting crime and protecting the community—and maybe getting an occasional adrenalin charge.

Let the memorial to Kelly Thomas be not war but peace, not hate and fear, anger or bluster but instead a path to understanding. Let his memorial be that he is the last homeless person to be beaten and the last to die such a brutal and senseless death. Let this be a call to healing.